Aristotle later borrowed Democritus' ideas to prove the existence of God.
Atoms that are constantly moving and collide with each other and bounce off fly through the air.
These atomic movements are explained by collisions with other atoms that occurred in the past.
The movement of that other atom can also be explained and traced back to a collision with another atom that occurred earlier.
Causes lead to effects, and every effect has a cause that precedes it.

If we go back very far in the past, there will be an initial movement that caused all events but did not itself attribute the cause.
These 'causeless causes' deviate from the general laws of nature, but can still influence nature.
This is another word for God.
---From "Chapter 2: The Indivisible Source"

Thomson used the term atom when he published the results of his experiments.
This was notorious for being easily misunderstood.
What we call atoms is neither an indivisible substance nor the smallest particle in the world.
It's just a stable structure that doesn't like to be separated.

According to Thomson's findings, the indivisible particle is the electron.
The electrons were stuck in a lump of dough with an opposite charge.
But science advances not when hypotheses are proven correct, but when they are disproved.
Thomson's plum pudding model was also torn to pieces by his disciple Ernest Rutherford.
---From "Chapter 3: Evolution of the Atomic Model"

We spend the first nine months of our lives growing up in our mother's womb through the food she consumes.
Those food atoms came from Earth, which was made from the remains of a long-dead star.
All the atoms in our bodies, except hydrogen, were born in the centers of stars and are made of stellar matter, as Carl Sagan once observed.

The stars that decorate the night sky are not transcendent beings made of ether, as Aristotle believed.
Those stars are made of the same stuff as us.
They are our distant relatives, and we will return to them after we die.
When the Earth is engulfed in fire and ends, the atoms that make us up will spread out into space.
And it will become part of another planet or another living being.
The ancient people who worshipped the stars chose their gods wisely.
---From "Chapter 4: Where Do Atoms Come From?"

There are only seven notes that are primarily used in Western music theory.
If you start from a certain note and raise the pitch according to the scale, the first note and the eighth note are the same note with only a difference in pitch.
The second and ninth notes have the same relationship.
A set of these seven notes is an octave.
As you increase the pitch, the sound rises in a spiral until it reaches a level that the human ear can no longer hear.

John Newlands applied the same logic to the table of elements.
He argued that there were seven categories that were repeated until the next higher group was reached.
The first seven elements will form the first row, and the 8th element will belong to the first category of the second row, which has similar properties to the 1st element.
Newlands called the seven vertical rows of the table of elements a 'group' and the eight horizontal rows a 'period'.
The word 'cycle' implies that something repeats regularly.
The idea that elements have 'periodic' properties was first proposed by John Newlands.
---From "Chapter 5: The Prelude to the Periodic Table"

Schrödinger created countless uncomfortable situations for those around him during his lifetime.
As a result, I was asked to step down from my position by many universities and institutions.
This was not due to academic achievements.
He left a great legacy in the scientific community.
The reason Schrödinger received such a request was because he was living in a three-way relationship with his wife Annemarie and his girlfriend Hilde.
---From "Chapter 6: The Periodic Table Solved by Quantum Mechanics"

When someone dies, it is taboo to speak ill of them, so we only say good things about the dead.
But this was not the case when Alfred Nobel's death was announced on April 13, 1888.
A French newspaper reportedly published an article under the headline “The Merchant of Death is Dead” with the following content: “Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by discovering a way to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”

Many people were unhappy with the newspaper's tribute to the great scientist in that way.
Among those who thought so was Alfred Nobel himself.
He was able to read his own obituary because he didn't actually die.
This happened when a newspaper published an article containing strong criticism of the two brothers after the death of Alfred's older brother, Ludwig Nobel.
---From "Chapter 7: If you're anxious, you'll explode"

Now we have reached element 118, and the periodic table is complete.
Can humanity go further? To be honest, I'm not sure.
With the advent of oganesson, the seventh electron shell is now full, but an eighth or ninth electron shell may also exist.

Seaborg predicted that the periodic table would stop at element 126.
126 is the magic number, and beyond that, no matter how many neutrons you add, the repulsion between protons becomes too strong.
The empty position 126 is temporarily called Unbihexium.
---From "Chapter 8: The Alchemist's Dream Comes True"

At that time, a fierce debate was taking place in the United States over how to supply electricity.
Edison had invested a huge amount of money in the battery-based electricity business.
So, he had to find fault with the magnet-based power generation method promoted by his competitor, George Westinghouse.
Edison's solution was simple but chilling.

It was the most horrifying marketing strategy in history.
Edison thought that if he ran his newly designed electric chair on Westinghouse's electricity, people would associate the competitor's electricity with death.

Edison tested the electric chair on stray animals.
Records show that he killed dogs, cats, birds, horses, and a circus elephant named Topsy (Edison even filmed Topsy's death).
---From "Chapter 9 Metallic Elements and Electricity"

The first person to widely use chlorine was the German chemist Fritz Haber.
He introduced chlorine as a chemical weapon during World War I.
In 1915, Haber supervised the installation of metal containers along a seven-kilometer stretch of the Western Front.
As the wind blew in the desired direction, he ordered the lid of the container to be opened.

Chlorine is a dense green gas that spreads along the ground like a liquid.
Thousands of soldiers were suffocated and blinded when goats, carried by the wind toward the British, filled their trenches.

According to Hermann Luecke's testimony, a party was held on May 1, 1915, to commemorate the simple but effective goat attack on Haber.
A few hours after the party, Haber's wife, Clara, took Haber's pistol.
And then he shot himself in the chest in the garden, and died moments later in his son's arms.
She was a famous pacifist.
---From "Chapter 12 Elements That Changed the World"

Naming an element is an honor given to the person who isolated that element.
Unfortunately, if you give your child a name that others don't like, arguments can arise.

In 1875, French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq named the newly discovered element gallium, derived from the Latin word for France, Gallia.
But soon after, he was suspected of doing something a little cunning.
The Latin word Gallus means rooster, and in French the rooster is Le Corre, the scientist's own name.
Le Coq cleverly named the elements and left his mark on them for a long time.

---From the "Appendix"